What a brilliant sport!

[awk]

It's the day after the weekend, and I feel at a bit of a loss. Why? Well, it's been a brilliant 10 days which have proved (if it needed proving) what a fantastic sport orienteering is, and I want more! Talk about variety....

Saturday May 20: SMOC British Sprint Champs in Milton Keynes. Short, sharp, furious racing; not the most classically technical orienteering, but you couldn't let up concentration for a second, it was a fantastic chance to race (over a sensible distance) against some of the best, and there was some excellent spectating to be had (in spite of the weather). Having the shopping centre immediately adjacent added to the interest for at leas one member of the family too!

Sunday May 21: WAOC Medium distance races in Rowney Warren. Wonderful terrain in its prime, great courses. A bit low key (where was everybody?), but good competition generated through their being a sensible number of courses and classes (5); prizes were a nice touch. Gobsmacked so many gave it a miss - far better than most fare this year.

Wednesday May 24: AIRE Sprint race on Danefield. Easy and thus fast course, fun thrash round a well-known local area. Made the traditional local informal so much more worthwhile. Competition is hotting up in the 4 out of 6 series!

Saturday May 29: Scottish Champs Individual in Glen Dye. Oh my goodness, a classic distance race (the only one in this 10 day stint). Found the going tougher than I remember from the Six Day, but what a great area, with huge variety.

Sunday May 30: Scottish Relays in Bogendreip. More runnable than I remember this time (the absence of bracken). Much better suited to a relay than an individual, and enjoyed this so much more than at the Six Days. Great thrash round, even if totally unable to keep up with the runners!

Monday May 31: Ebor York City Race. I can't believe we've not done this before, but the journey back from Scotland has always seemed too far in the time. No it's not! Definitely worth the effort - problem is we don't want to wait till next year (so Oxford and Venice here we come). Fantastically varied orienteering: city centre streets and alleys, park, jumbled up housing estates, etc. etc.

All in all, a great 10 days. Yes, things weren't always perfect and one could pick holes in some areas but that's not what I want to focus on. What really stands out is what fantastic variety and fun the 10 days has been. And only one 'standard' event in the whole lot. This was the really big message to me: orienteering is a whole lot more fun when we think beyond the straitjacket of the standard district/regional/national event. Yes, they should be part of the mix, but not the standard week after week after week. I will enjoy the next event (a district event) a whole lot more now because of the more varied menu, so a humungous thank you to all those who have been involved in putting on these events and making it such a great few days.

[Barny of Blandford]

We also went to Milton Keynes and Rowney Warren and all three of us thoroughly enjoyed both days (we even got a travelodge for £10 - so it was a cheap weekend - also offer on little chef next door - didnt we do well)
This weekend just the two of us (minus son who is working hard running a conference at Reading) went to Devon/Kerno weeked and despite the mud and rain had a brilliant weekend ( pity my brain forgot what orienteering was - you are supposed to find the controls I am told)
Thanks to all those who have put in many hours of hard work to make all these wonderful events run - may we have many more to come and may we also learn to be far more positive and forgiving in all our comments - I know that I am not perfect looking at my results this weekend - and I think we often forget that people have to organise these things around their everyday work and family commitments
Thankyou everyone

[sgb]

OUOC went to both the Milton Keynes Sprints and Rowney Warren Middle Races. Unfortunately, the latter has to be my last race until Finals are over, but it was a great run to get out for, and we started publicising the Oxford City Race that weekend as well...

...which will lead us to another weekend of great orienteering. The Oxford City Race on Saturday 4 November and then the November Classic the day after - do we get fireworks???.

Who said the season stops with the summer multiday events?!

[Ant Jones]

And what a bummer it is to have been injured for the last 10 days! From the reports I've heard/read sounds like an excellent couple of weekends that I've missed!

[LukeW]

I'd like to echo Barny's comments about the Tamar Triple. It was a great three days of orienteering in a gem of a forest, well worth the drive back from Oxford. Many thanks to DEVON and KERNO for organising an excellent event.

[johnloguk]

I couldn't agree more with Awk's original post, yes we really do have a wonderful and varied sport.

But I sometimes get frustrated that many people avoid anything different and trundle along to the same old C4s (and even same old C3s and some C2s) week in week out, often on the same areas, with the same or similar legs and control sites . Sprint race? "oh no far too fast for me, leave that to the youngsters". Relays? "oh no far too much pressure in a relay, don't want to screw up and upset my team". Score event? "oh no, far to complicated, don't want to be looking at my watch all the way round" etc etc.

The variety of orienteering is what makes it for me, different formats, different areas, variety is....

A group of us went to the York Park Races last weekend and what great fun it was, and why hadn't we done it before, fantastic stuff. None of us were going to get anywhere near Craney and co, but jumping down those big walls when I made a bad route choice was the best fun I've had orienteering for ages. Well done EBOR, brilliant effort.

Having had a moan about people not wanting to try new stuff I guess there is evidence that the tide is turning, with more varied events on offer these days, and this is where the blatant self-interest plug comes in I'm afraid. Earlier this year LOG and RAFO got some very nice pats on the back about our Lincolnshire Bomber weekend, not because the areas were particularly brilliant but because it was different and innovative. Well we hope to repeat the Bomber next January 13/14th with Relays at RAF Cranwell (the RAF equivalent of Sandhurst) on the saturday, followed by a Park Race and Long-O in Lincoln on the sunday. The Park Race will be similar to York, with the added "attraction(?)" of the hill. The Long-O will be about 20km, linking existing O-maps in the city with some great new areas and some street-O. There won't be many brambles, bits will be technical, lots will be fast, it will just be very different, so please put it in your diaries and support the wonderful variety in our sport.

[HOCOLITE]

[quote="johnloguk"]:lol: I couldn't agree more with Awk's original post, yes we really do have a wonderful and varied sport.

But I sometimes get frustrated that many people avoid anything different and trundle along to the same old C4s (and even same old C3s and some C2s) week in week out, often on the same areas, with the same or similar legs and control sites . Sprint race? "oh no far too fast for me, leave that to the youngsters". Relays? "oh no far too much pressure in a relay, don't want to screw up and upset my team". Score event? "oh no, far to complicated, don't want to be looking at my watch all the way round" etc etc.

quote]

I've had all those feelings but have done all. Relays I do regularly and always say to organiser don't put me in a competitive team, unless you are so desperate that that you need someone to make up the numbers. I really enjoyed JK relays this year, I enjoyed the Sprint O at Battersea, particularly the last 100m down the track. I regularly do score events knowing I won't be at the top but do endeavour to inmprove my time management, have even done night scores and will be making up the numbers on the harvester as well. But I wont take johnlog up on his long O under any circumstance.. It's horses for courses and variety is the spice of life etc. It's great to have the opportunity but you have to draw the line somewhere.

[johnloguk]

I suspect you're not alone on that one Hocolite When I finished the long-O at the Bomber in January I had been fighting off the most amazing cramps for the last few hundred metres, doing a strange jig down the last downhill stretch to the finish. But I was so elated to have finished 8 seconds under my target time of 3 hours that I can honestly say that I still loved it. My wife didn't run this year but her best friend did, and so at the moment she's saying she wants to do it next year, but I suspect she'll end up doing the Park Race instead

We hope that the Lincoln long-O will be very varied, a sort of orienteering year in one day! Some areas of fast rough open hillside with a fair bit of contour detail, some nice woods, a couple of city parks, a nature reserve, some short stretches of river bank, a reclaimed landfill site, a University Campus and bit of street-O thrown in at the end. Whisper it quietly, but we might even have a run round a castle, battlement north end anyone?

I've just been looking at the flyer for the Oxford City Race and that looks stunning, must try and fit that into my diary somehow.

[awk]

:we hope to repeat the Bomber next January 13/14th with Relays at RAF Cranwell (the RAF equivalent of Sandhurst) on the saturday, followed by a Park Race and Long-O in Lincoln on the sunday.

Does that mean the park race and long-O will clash? I hope not!

[johnloguk]

Awk wrote "Does that mean the park race and long-O will clash? I hope not!"


sadly they are on the same day yes. I'm faced with the same dilemma, but will probably run the Long-O as I'm making the maps for it and always like to check my maps out from a competitors perspective. Theoretically it would be possible to do both, and no doubt some of the hardcore will manage both , but that maybe isn't for us lesser mortals.

If the Lincoln Park Race is well received we hope to make it an annual stand alone event like the York race, and at a more hospitable time of year than January too.

There is clearly a mood in the country, typified by this thread, that a lot of people out there want variety in their orienteering, and that is what the Lincolnshire Bomber Weekend was originally conceived to do. We'd like to do something a bit left field every year, maybe always a relay on the Saturday, then a choice of 2 different events on the Sunday. We've got lots of ideas and surprises, but we also want to listen to what people want. In 2006 it was a C4 and the Long-O, and the long-O was particularly well received so will be repeated with a semi-urban twist in 2007. We'll see what unfolds for Bomber 2008.

I think I'm right in saying, apologies if I'm wrong, that NOC are holding a night-O on a new area on the saturday night, so you could get 4 totally different events over the weekend within 25 miles of Lincoln.

I hope that the Cranwell Relays get a good turnout too, it is a prestigious venue, not used previously for a public event. We had 11 teams for the Bomber Relays this year, including 4 from Sweden, we'd like to at least double that.